I recently finished reading The Death of Expertise: The Campaign Against Established Knowledge and Why it Matters by Tom Nichols (@RadioFreeTom). I enjoyed the book and wanted to share some thoughts with you. (Or with y’all, depending on where y’all from).
Frequent readers of this blog know a few things about me. You know about my hatred of NULLs and distrust of Wikipedia. You may also know I wrote a book review for The Cult of the Amateur, which helps to explain how websites such as Wikipedia are making many people dumber, not smarter. In The Death of Expertise (DoE from now on, because I’m lazy), Nichols hammers home this point by sharing personal stories as well as data to back up his assertions.
In my career as a data professional, I witnessed examples where a person with less knowledge and experience than another has dismissed the expert as being wrong. At times it would appear the reason for the dismissal is only the result of the person being an expert. It is “hip” to bash someone for the simple reason that they have knowledge and you do not. There were also times I saw an expert opinion dismissed because they “weren’t well known”. This is a common tact by which one person tries to elevate their status by demeaning the status of another.
[Look, if someone wrote code for the SQL Server Engine you might want to take their word for how things work. Their word is better than some random blog post or Wikipedia article. But hey, that’s me. You should do you.]
DoE helps to break down why the human race is getting dumber with each passing year. I’m not going to ruin the book for you, but I do want to share my take on some of the points made in the book.
Access to the internet has made everyone believe they can be an expert in anything. You can’t read a book about databases, or business, or consulting and think you are an expert. And yet, that’s what we are seeing daily. There are many blogs, podcasts, and newsletters from people claiming to be an expert by…well…because they said they were an expert, I guess.
Much of the information searched for online is a result of confirmation bias. That is, we search for or accept information that confirms what we already believe to be true. When facts do surface, they become evidence to support the claim. But anything to the contrary is often dismissed as not reputable, or “fake news”.
The rise of the Internet, along with confirmation bias, also leads to cognitive bias. The most famous cognitive bias is the Dunning-Kruger effect. The simple view of Dunning-Kruger is this: the people who are most certain about being right are also the ones with the least reason for such self confidence. From time to time we all overestimate our abilities. But those of us with the least amount of competence do it the most often. Every profession has over-achievers that aren’t that good at their jobs. Thanks to the Internet, those people are able to GO ALL CAPS AS NECESSARY.
In addition to all of the above, I want to mention that a college education is no longer about knowledge. For over sixty years colleges have been more about being the business of higher education rather than providing an education. Schools are there to make a profit. They do that by having customers (i.e., students). And the customer is always right. This is why issues such as grade inflation exist, along with the idea that everyone wins a trophy.
The end result is that students believe that it is their right to earn an A, regardless of effort, or if they actually know the material. I once witnessed a woman discussing with her professor a failing grade in a class on Real Analysis. She was upset about failing, as can be expected. When she pressed about the grade the professor asked a simple question:
“If I asked you to tell me right now what it meant for an infinite series to converge what would you say?”
Her response?
“I don’t see what that has to do with my grade!”
Colleges are in the business of creating alumni, not scholars. If a college happens to find a person good enough to be both, that’s just a bonus.
Summary
Too many people want shortcuts in life. The internet provides shortcuts for everyone.
The internet also provides a platform for people to profess their expertise in subjects for which they are not experts. It is also great at sharing pictures of cats.
All of the above reasons (and more) are why we are witnessing the Death of Expertise.
But, you should buy the book to read for yourself, and draw your own conclusions. Don’t just take my word for it.
I’m not the expert on such things.
I wonder if grade inflation exists because there is not a free market in education. Education, for the most part, is a bureaucratic organization. It’s customer is the government. The government wants it to graduate people so it looks good in front of the public. So, to get the money higher education institutions must inflate the grades.
In more of a free market education system the incentive would be to prepare the students for industry or jobs or starting their own business or to actually learn a skill that the student wants to learn (the student wouldn’t be forced to take classes that don’t lead to the actual skill they are wanting to learn). If their graduates don’t get jobs afterwards and if people had to spend their own money (no guaranteed student loans or student grants) then they aren’t going to attract students.
Just some thoughts. But I agree we all have our biases and its hard to know when our biases are misleading us. It would be nice to get past our biases. But at the same time that is what makes us human. Otherwise we would be machines and we could spend years thinking about a single problem trying to figure out the best way to do something rather than taking action and risk – granted, you could probably program a machine to do that too :-).
Thanks for the comment! I think that there is a free market in education, it’s called private schools. And they all compete for students, because they need students to pay tuition and fees. And the students borrow money from the government to do so. Education is a status symbol for most. Would you rather go to a local school for medicine or Duke, or Harvard?
Your degree should measure your ability to do work. The trouble now is that most students aren’t interested in doing the work. They are there to get a degree in order to get a job, but the job typically has nothing to do with their degree. And because they aren’t interested in doing the work, the degree has less value over time.
I think education should be free. There is no reason why our country cannot freely educate our citizens and help them gain some knowledge with which to get a job that relates to their degree. Oh, wait, there *is* a reason: colleges and universities wouldn’t make as much money. I’m not saying everyone gets to go to Harvard. Some states are already offering free tuition for certain students that are wiling to meet guidelines. This is a great first step.
If you make education free, and find a way to remove it from being a status symbol, then the people that will go to college are more likely to be there for knowledge and willing to do the work, IMO.
A free market in education wouldn’t have regulations neither would it have federal or state funding. Most “private” higher education schools have federal and/or state funding (as you said in your first paragraph). So, they try to get money from the government. How do you get money from the government? By having students and graduating them. A free market education system would deal more with employers. Don’t get me wrong I don’t think it is 100% in either direction, I think it is a mix of the two.
I agree that students aren’t incentivized to do the work because they don’t really want to go to college. For the vast majority of people I think it is a great waste of time and effort for them to go to college. Maybe a one or two year trade school would make sense for some. The only reason college is required by so many companies is precisely because the federal and state governments have poured so much money into them. Why would an employer say they only need a high school diploma when they have people applying for jobs with college degrees? Companies have been on the record saying as much.
I agree that learning and education are very important. But going to a traditional school doesn’t imply learning and education, as you said yourself. Give people a chance to focus on what they find interesting and/or what they think will provide a good future for them and they will excel and they will be interested. But when artificial obstacles are put in their way because so much money is given to higher education and so jobs require these degrees you are going to get a lot of disinterested students going there.
I am likely to be wrong on some or parts of those points. But just from what I’ve read and understand it seems to be the case.
Thanks for engaging me on this topic. I think it is an interesting topic. And you can tell where are biases lie, just getting past them and figuring out truth is the hard part. Since we don’t know what we don’t know until we learn it. I’ve changed many of my beliefs radically over my lifetime and I always wonder what other beliefs I will change as I learn more!
Yes, I believe we are in agreement on a lot of points in this discussion. And I also agree that we don’t have all the answers, to anything, even if we think we do. Thanks again for the comments!
“…Your degree should measure your ability to do work. …” It should but most/many do not. If the degree program contains an internship then “yes”. Most if not all degree programs do not equip the student to actually work in the field for which the degree is intended to prepare them.
And regarding borrowing of money for education, the government shouldn’t be in the loan business by virtue of quasi-governmental entities that buy loan portfolios from lending institutions (so that those lending institutions can clear those loans off their books enabling them to generate more loans).
The degree should indicate to an employer your ability to do a certain level of work. This “work” is in the form of research, communication (written and verbal), collaboration, analytical thinking and reasoning. All of those skills are applicable to a wide range of fields. My background in mathematics allowed for me to pursue just about any field I would have wanted, mostly based upon the logical and analytical skills required to earn my BA, and then my MS.
Alas, those degrees are worth less with each passing year. Fortunately I have practical work experience at this point to make up the difference. But the value of a BA or MS today isn’t what it was, IMO. At least not the degree by itself. You need to find relevant work experience to amplify your degree. There are schools like Northeastern that specialize in co-op programs to help students get both education and experience.
Don’t get me started on the money part. I’ve no interest in borrowing to pay for my children’s college expenses.
Thanks for the comments, much appreciated!
It would be “all y’all” in this usage.
Bless your heart.
There is a double-edged sword going on here. Yes, there is some type of dumbing down going on overall. However, there is a decided step-down in “expertise” these days. Look to the reproducibility crises going on in science. Look to the dismissal of the scientific method as being too “-ist” to be used for meaningful inquiry (sexist, racist, etc.). Look to the wide-spread correction of established knowledge such as the impact of salt or fat on diet & weight. The exact causes of all this are unclear (at least to me), but there does seem to be actual justification for a dismissal of “expertise” as measured by having credentials.
But what do I know, I dropped out of college (well, film school, almost the same thing).
Yep, you should read the book, it talks about what you have just mentioned. I think it is partly the same reason for why conspiracy theories exist. Because the world is complex and conspiracy theories often offer an easy explanation, even if the facts don’t add up. That same human trait is in play when we see people reject science and suggest that babies are healthier if they drink raw milk. It’s crazy.